Good Mom Bad Mom

Daniel spent the morning with my In-Laws and the afternoon with my Mom.  Which meant that when the first call came 30 minutes after she had collected him I was already rolling my eyes.  (For incase I haven’t mentioned it before, I love my Mom dearly, but she is a case study on hypochondria waiting to happen)

When the first call came “I think his glands are swollen” I rolled my eyes.

When the second call came: “His glands are swollen, he keeps his head to the one side and it looks stiff and his fever is going up” I started listening.

And dreading that I might have to leave work.  As you do.

Cue desperate sms’ing of the Homeopath which resulted in a decision to leave work earlier to take him for a quick check-up.  Just because you never know.

As I drove away from work I felt like a very bad employee, but I felt like a worse Mother. I had an entire thought-process about at what point I would become a Bad Mother. (if I wasn’t one already), because if there’s something we all dread it’s the mere thought of being labelled The Bad Mother.

Until I saw him.  And I knew that no matter what, my sweet little boy needed me and I had made the right decision.  A quick visit to the Homeopath confirmed that we should rather get him off to the GP and off we went.  A 39.3 C temp, a script for antibiotics and 1 Voltaren suppository later he looked a lot better this evening.  It’s scary when doctors start saying things like Scarlet Fever, Meningitis and Monitor in the same sentence, but thankfully it just (!) looks like really bad tonsillitis and an ear infection.

Casting my mind back over the day I realise that, instead of feeling like a Bad Mother for being at work, I should rather feel like a Good Mother for making the call and collecting my sick child.  And as much as I don’t like antibiotics that sometimes it isn’t about what I like, but about what my child needs.

And that’s completely fine by me.

Roll on long-weekend!!